A Melancholy Occurence.. a contemporary report of the 1813 incident where eleven men lost their lives while fishing in the Atlantic Ocean south of Fire Island, as recorded in the Long Island Star (Brooklyn), 17 Nov 1813.

.. This August 1946 article in the Long Island Forum by Clarence Ashton Wood is a more or less modern account of this tragedy.

Editors note: "Although the Forum from time to time has carried brief references to the incident here described, we believe this to be the most complete account yet given. That it is by an author whose high regard for facts is well established lends authenticity, we feel to the data here presented."

The parents of James and Henry's Homan's—David and Bathsheba Homan—is here as assigned by the Homan tree, LongIslandGenealogy.com surname database. While not unreasonable, there are significant ambiguities that need to be addressed. Contemporary and modern accounts of the fishing accident do not mention the parents of James and Henry Homan, nor even that they were brothers. It is mentioned, however, that James left a family; and the 1810 census confirms a family of three sons and two daughters, all under age 10.

In both the the 1790 and 1800 censuses, David Homan's household had no young children—just two occupants, presumably David and Bathsheba. This would suggest that David and Bathsheba did not have any living children for at least some ten years, until after 1800 (itself questionable); but if so, James and Henry would seem to have been too young to be joining a November 1813 fishing party.

It may be that the woman in the household in 1790 was not Bathsheba, but an unnamed first wife to David, and that James and Henry were of that union. She died in the intervening decade, and David then remarried to Bathsheba near to 1800, accounting for the subsequent children. Unfortunately, the available records so far found are just too incomplete to settle the matter. And it does not account for there being no children in the David Homan household in 1800.

It may also be that James and Henry's father was not David Homan. Both the 1810 census and the 1812 Town of Brookhaven record of James referred to him as "James Junr." While not necessarily meaning that he was the son of a James Homan, it is a strong possibility, especially if the father was living nearby. And indeed, the 1800, 1810 and 1820 censuses revealed an older James Homan, perhaps living in nearby Yaphank (based on other nearby names). In the 1800 census the older James' household had two males under 10, one male 26-44, two females under 10, and one female 26-44. Even if one of the young boys was our James, Junr. (say aged nine), it is a bit of a stretch for him to have conceived (and his wife to have produce) five children over the next decade.

It may be that James and the elusive Henry were not even brothers, as has been assumed.

The 1800 census recorded two other Homan households in South Haven/Fire Place—Mordecai and John. John's household recorded one male 10-16; conceivably this could have been James, who then married shortly after 1800, say at about aged 18, having five children in the remaining years of the decade. Mordecai's household seems to be better understood, and does not include either a James or Henry.

[S39] Bigelow, p. 5.
"A major tragedy that affected the people of Fireplace occurred on Friday, November 5, 1813. A crew of eleven fishermen went through Smith's Inlet [Old Inlet] to fish from a "dry shoal" several hundred yards out in the ocean. While busy with their nets they did not notice that their boat was insecure and had floated away. It had been caught in the current running through the inlet as the tide began to change. As the water deepened over the sandbar, the men called for help, but none heard or came, and all were drowned. Six widows were left. One had said she was sure she had recognized her husband's voice shouting for help, but no one had believed her. The men were William rose, Isaac Woodruff, Daniel and Lewis Pearshall, Benjamin Brown, Nehemiah Hand, James and Henry Homan, Charles Ellison, James Prior and John Hulse."

[S682] Long Island Star: 17 November 1813.
"Melancholy Occurrence — Rarely, indeed, has it been our painful duty to record a more melancholy occurrence than one which recently took place in that part of Brooklin [sic, Brookhaven] called Fire Place. On the evening of Friday, the 5th instant, eleven men, belonging to that village, went to the South Shore with a seine for fishing, viz: William Rose, Isaac Woodruff, Lewis Parshall, Benjamin Brown, Nehemiah Hand, James Horner, Charles Ellison, James Prior, Daniel Parshall, Harry Horner and John Hulse. On Saturday morning the affecting discovery was made that they were all drowned. It is supposed the whole party embarked in one boat, and went out to the outer bar, a distance of two miles from the shore, and which at low water is in some places bare, but that by some accident the boat was stove or sunk, and the whole party left to perish by the rising of the tide, which, at high water, is eight or ten feet on the bar. The boat came on shore in pieces, and also eight bodies. The six first named have left families. Long will a whole neighborhood lament this overwhelming affliction, and the tears of the widow and orphan flow for their husband, father and friend."

[S44] Borthwick, p. 180-181.
" ... eleven men, namely, William Rose, Isaac Woodruff, Henry Homan, Charles Ellison, James Prior, John Hulse, Daniel and Lewis Parshall, Enjamin Brown, Nehemiah Hand, and James Homan went off South Beach in their small boat to fish. According to the tradition, the men landed on the sand bar several hundred yards off shore, which at low tide is above water, to shake the sea-weed out of their nets, and hauled their boat upon the sand. They carelessly failed to anchor it, with the result that in the darkness they did not see that the rising tide was washing around it and lifting it, until finally a wave carried it off the bar. When they made the discovery that their boat was gone, and felt the tide rising about their feet, they began to shout so loudly that they were heard across the Beach and Great South Bay by people on the mainland at Brookhaven. It was a beautiful, calm night. One woman went to her neighbor's and remarked that she thought that something was wrong at the Beach as she was sure she had heard her husband's voice. It has always been a mystery why a rival fishing crew, which that night was in a house on the Beach, did not hear the men's cries and rescue them. One tradition declares that a man who had heard the shouting of the stranded fishermen, broke into the house to ask them to get the men. They evidently had been drinking, for one man drunkenly replied in answer to the intruder's plea: 'Damn'em, let 'em drown.' All eleven were drowned, and the next morning there were eight widows in the parish of South Haven."